


Odette, Odette, Oh Damn

by gaytriangle



Series: My True Love Gave To Me... [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Swan Lake Fusion, F/F, Joffrey is a dick, Margaery is in the FBI, Sansa is a swan, scene, yeah all three why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 01:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17070581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytriangle/pseuds/gaytriangle
Summary: Margaery, a well renowned WBI agent, is on the trail of Joffrey Baratheon, whom she believes is behind a string of disappearances in Kings Landing. On the way, she makes tentative friends with a swan, and then things change entirely.





	Odette, Odette, Oh Damn

**Author's Note:**

> Post script, eight months later:
> 
> I hate this fic and it’s only still up because this was my first time ever actually finishing a whole challenge. You’ve been warned.

The one thing Margaery enjoyed about dating Joffrey were the evenings. When the temperamental lion was busy making someone else’s life a misery, she was free. Most of those evenings she spent by the river. Too many happy summers to count had been spent on its banks by people long gone, but it held no such joy now. The weeds growing up along the banks had choked all of the beautiful flower beds someone once cared for, robbing everyone else of their excuse to visit. This particular cold, damp winter, the only people ever found on the banks were Margaery and the swan. 

The swan was a strange bird. Margaery had never seen one like it, and it only seemed to appear on these exhausting nights. Certainly, Willas had never seen it on one of his early morning strolls. Despite appearing well past the age that most swans would have taken a mate, this ones only companion was the ice which formed and reformed over the river surface. And Margaery, of course. 

This particular evening, the swan was floating a few inches off the bank. It seemed to be waiting for Margaery, who obligingly sat down with a huff. She was still dressed in the damned party dress Joffrey had demanded she wear to his mothers party of the week, but she had pilfered a small amount of crust for her swan. It was utterly pathetic, how dependant she was on the bird for an easy friendship.

The bird flicked its wings in Margaerys direction, and she sighed. “I think it’s hopeless, birdie. He’s still the same as he ever was, and grandmother is losing patience with me. If Joffrey doesn’t reveal something soon, it’ll be too late.” Margaery cracked a tiny smile at the swan, who had started hissing when she said the name of her boyfriend and current investigation. Every time she said the name of the probable crook, her bird had reacted badly. It was one of the many things that made Margaery consider the thing to be more than your average river bird. 

“I know, I know, I can’t give up yet. I just know he had something to do with those poor girls, birdie, but I don’t think I can prove it without putting my life on the line.” The swan huffed, then, something like concern evident in its eyes. They were icy pale, almost seeming blue to Margaerys exhausted gaze, and showing a great deal of the protective aura normal swans possessed. Or, perhaps, that she had finally gone insane. 

Margaery pulled her light jacket closer around her gauzy dress, watching the bird glide onto land and sit next to her. She froze, in that second, remembering all about the supposed viscousness of swans, but it merely seemed content to sit there. Her bone tired brain couldn’t find reason to complain: the bird was warm, at least.

Margaery awoke with a start to find a girl kneeling over her. Hauntingly pretty yet confusingly familiar, with brilliant red hair curling from the water. Come to think of it, Margaerys own hair felt similarly wet. And cold; as she came too, she began to realise how deep the chill went. The girl sat back, satisfied, and helped Margaery into a sitting position. “Careful,” she said, in an oddly hoarse voice for such a waif, “I think you’ve been here all night.”

Margaery glanced around. Although lower on the bank, this was still where she was the previous night. There were two or three oddly shaped feathers to prove that the bird had indeed been sitting beside her, but had left before she awoke. She clearly owed quite a bit to the beautiful girl that had woken her. When she tried to say so, the ginger shook her head. “Only did what was right,” she said, in that oddly clipped manner that seemed to be the usual way she spoke. 

Margaery smiled anyway. “Let me thank you anyway. Would you take breakfast with me?” She didn’t miss how the other girls eyes widened with something like fear, nor the pause before she offered her name - “Alayne” - and the even more hesitant refusal. Margaery now felt intrigued, and as was her duty as a member of the Westerosi Bureau of Investigations, was determined to find out more about this curious stranger. 

“Would I meet you back here tomorrow, then, with something to thank you? I cannot let such a good deed go without repayment.” At this, for some reason, the girls eyes lit up, and she was quick to nod. That was even stranger than what she was wearing- an almost threadbare semi-formal grey dress and untied hiking boots that seemed a size too big and far too gaudy for her. They didn’t do anything for her, but she still looked like some marble statue given breath. Margaery noted, even as she made plans to see her again, that Alayne had left no footprints in coming to the riverbank. 

Joffrey was furious at her for being late, of course, but Margaery felt so oddly buoyed by her encounter with Alayne that she barely noticed. The one thing wrong with her day was that when she returned to the bank that night, her swan had vanished. The river had almost completely iced over too, and most strange of all, the weeds growing on ‘Margaerys’ strip of bank had been cleared away. Walking home alone under the moonlight, Margaery felt that the whole damn day had been too surreal for words. 

The following morning, not very long past dawn, Margaery returned to her river armed with a warm jacket for Alayne. Alayne, who despite the early hour, was calmly sitting on the same part of the bank as the day before, still dressed in that odd outfit. Margaery got the surreal idea that maybe, just possibly, she was speaking to a ghost. But Alayne was real, and cold, and took Margaerys offering with gratitude. Still, she looked forlorn. After a short amount of pressing, she muttered, “today would have been my birthday.”

Margaery knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was more to it than that, but didn’t press. Instead, she helped the other girl up, declaring that “I can help with that. I’m sure i have some cupcakes in my house, and you can have a good time. Just for a little while,” she added, realising that Alayne was maintaining her hesitation. Margaery was determined, however, because the other girl was feather light where she grabbed her, and maybe in a warm living room, she would be more inclined to tell the WBI agent why exactly she seemed so desperately unhappy. Alayne agreed, on the condition that she could be back within the hour. 

That hour was nearly up when Joffrey arose. Alayne had gladly accepted a change of clothes and some cocoa, although she left her hair still wet. She could dance around Margaery in conversation with an ease the other girl would have found refreshing if it hadn’t been infuriating, and volunteered only enough personal information to concern Margaery more, and to make her protective. It was beyond obvious that something was wrong with Alayne. The rose winced when the heard the bedroom door slam open, and Alayne hid her face in her hair. Her hands shook as the Lannister stormed in. “Margaery! You didn’t tell me you had a _friend_ over.” 

By his leering tone alone, Margaery knew that this meeting would not have a good ending for either of them, but Alayne surprised her by looking up. Her face was blank, but it wiped the sneer off of Joffreys. He took several steps back, stuttering “how”, even as the waif stayed stock still. Margaerys eyes darted between the two of them, not sure what piece of the puzzle she was missing. 

“You’ve met?”  
“Many, many times,” said Alayne. Her voice was practically a hiss as she stood up, and why did hearing the click of cup onto table and shows across floor make Joffrey whiten further, and why did she continue with “but Joffrey remembers the last very well. Don’t you, Joff? Tell Margaery what happened a year and a day before now.” She was shaking, full body, but Margaery had gone still. 

It had been a year and a day since Sansa Stark, Joffreys ex and the subject of Margaerys case, vanished without a trace. Joffrey stumbled through an explanation even as he continued attempting to back up. “Maggie the Frog said she’d keep the wolf bitch safe and away. I don’t know who you are, but you aren’t Stark!”

“Maggie the frog gave me a curse, it’s true. If she’d been a day earlier preparing it, I’d be lost forever.” Sansa was terrifying, and Margaery resisted the urge to flinch when the wolf turned her gaze onto her. Her eyes were piercing, icy blue. They reminded the rose, oddly enough, of her dear birdie. “But she didn’t count on kindness, or in love.” Sansa snorted, for a second, looking bizarrely normal as she continued. “Or stubbornness. She brought magic, not brains.” 

Sansa walked straight up to him, and reached under his shirt. That old locket he wore, “a gift from mother”, glowed as silver as moonlight in Sansas hand, before melting away entirely. The wolf girl gave a sigh of relief, shaking back her shoulders, before moving to Margaery. All of the WBIs training disappeared in that split second, and her blood pumped with the urge for flight or fight. She didn’t expect a feather light touch to the arm. “Thank you, Margaery. You gave me my life back.”

“How?” said Margaery, confused but beginning to realise that Sansa was only truly angry at Joffrey. Sansa led her to the mirror that hung in the hall for as long as Margaery had slept here, gilded silver with tiny carvings of frogs. Glancing in, she saw herself standing next to a very particular swan. 

“Joffrey cursed me, when I wouldn’t marry him. You kept me feeling human for months through friendship,” and wasn’t it so odd to see this swan girl blush, yet so endearing? “and when I took my own form- you, well, it was enough to let me come here. To see him.” Margaery quickly matched her pallor when she realised exactly what kind of ‘love’ for the Stark freed her, but gave a cheeky wink anyway. If this whole place was going to be full of bizarre magic, let that be what saved her birdie. 

“Think I’d prefer to get to know you a bit more, before we said love. Will you take me up on breakfast now?” Sansa laughed, wholeheartedly, and threw on one of Margaerys jackets. It warmed the roses heart in funny ways. 

Joffrey yelled out, as they were leaving, “what about me?” Sansa turned her cold eyes back onto the boy. “Enjoy moulting, bird brain.”

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I’m barely sure what this is, but please enjoy vindictive Sansa and confused but with it Margaery. 
> 
> I can’t believe this is my longest one shot.


End file.
